Ambassador Profile – Stefan Buttigieg – Malta

Stefan Buttigieg

Malta

Stefan is a Specialist Trainee in Public Health Medicine with a special interest in Clinical Informatics, Social Media and Digital Health. He is also an Author, Tutor and Digital Health Consultant focused on creating transformative and effective change.

Focused on expanding his knowledge within the field of Public Health, Social Media, Biomedical Informatics, Project Management and MobileDevelopment with the main aim of empowering healthcare professionals to design, develop and distribute user-centric applications for healthcare.

Stefan is very passionate about establishing contacts with people from all walks of life and is energized about getting the best out of people and helping them achieve their technological goals and vision.

Tell us a bit more about yourself, your background and what you’re doing now.

From my early childhood, I've always had an inclination for technology and as yet, I've decided to take the healthcare route. Throughout the years, I've graduated as a Doctor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Malta and recently got Masters in Public Health at the University of Malta and a Masters of Health Informatics at the University of Sheffield. In the meantime, I've relentlessly pursued to get better in communicating myself, reaching out to the relevant stakeholders, product management and data science.

How did you get involved with digital health?

Digital Health offered me a wonderful opportunity to integrate the two fields that I've ventured into. In reality, becoming a part of this field was a leap of faith and courage. My first adventure was making my way to eHealthWeek 2016 in Amsterdam as a Social Media Ambassador for HIMSS Europe where I immersed myself into the world of European Health IT. The rest is history, and since then I've travelled around the world and involved myself in a number of Health IT and Digital Health projects and very recently set up Malta's first Digital Health community, Health 2.0 Malta.

Tell us about where you come from and some of the health and technology innovation that’s happening there.

I hail from the tiny island of Malta, one of the smallest European states and I'm inherently proud of our myHealth platform which was is a monumental step forward in health innovation and patient access to their own medical data. As simple as it might look, this platform brought about true innovation with its widespread uptake and interest. The future is bright for Digital Health in Malta.

What are some of the top things other health innovators should know about where you live now?

The Government of Malta, in recent years(2016-2018), has committed itself to improve itself in the fields of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, opening up these fields to the private industry. This is opening up an opportunity for Digital Health companies to be part of this ecosystem and creating new pathways for public health and healthcare organisations to be a part of this and do their work in a better way.

Join the Digital Health Community!

Digital Health Today features the leading innovators and latest innovations from around the world which are addressing today’s health and wellness challenges. Learn how the latest advances, leading research and best practices are being applied to grow and scale digital health solutions.